


razor blades don't match the pain

by Saral_Hylor



Category: The Losers (Comic)
Genre: Comics compliant, Cougar died, Gen, Grief/Mourning, M/M, not about self harm despite the title
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-13
Updated: 2014-05-13
Packaged: 2018-01-24 14:52:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 819
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1609109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Saral_Hylor/pseuds/Saral_Hylor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt fill: The Losers - Jensen - his memories of Cougar were like razor-sharp snapshots in his mind</p>
<p>Prompt left by jujitsuelf on fic_promptly</p>
            </blockquote>





	razor blades don't match the pain

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to [quandong_crumble](http://archiveofourown.org/users/quandong_crumble/pseuds/quandong_crumble), [3White_Mage3](http://archiveofourown.org/users/3White_Mage3/pseuds/3White_Mage3) and [jujitsuelf](http://archiveofourown.org/users/jujitsuelf/pseuds/jujitsuelf) for the read throughs and support, and thanks to the elf lady for the original prompt.

There are some days when he isn't even sure how he functions any more. Days when he stays in bed in Pooch's spare room and stares blankly at the ceiling, or the wall, whichever it is that seems the most interesting. He just stays there, hardly moving, except for his eyes which track the shadows that creep slowly across the room. Days like that he ignores the knocking on his door, or the sound of Pooch's worried voice outside asking him if he's going to be okay. He doesn't say anything on those days, because he isn't sure how to answer that question with something other than "no".

On those days he remembers the times he'd settle in next to Cougar on a stake out, the rifle between them and Cougar's foot nudging his shin every time he talked too much. He catches memories of Cougar's slow smiles, the way he'd tilt his hat over his eyes to hide his amusement, the way their shoulders would knock together when the drank and laughed in the bar just off base - back in the days when Cougar still laughed. He closes his eyes and catches a memory, sharp and painful, of the way he caught Cougar looking at him some times, and it makes everything ache all the more. He never knows how to explain it, but somehow losing something you never had hurts more than losing what you did have.

There are days when he stays awake one after another, hunched over his computer because he doesn't know what else to do when he feels so destructive and reckless. Days when he rattles around the house too late at night, out in the kitchen when everyone else is asleep, making more noise than food, until Jolene ventures out, wrapped up in a dressing gown. She never says anything, the way her fingers curl around his wrist to stop him part way through mutilating some food item or another says more than words ever could. She directs him over to a chair and takes over making him something to eat, and listens like she knows what he's saying when he keep rambling like a maniac, jumping from one topic to another and never finishing full sentences. When he finally stops talking, there's a hand resting on the back of his neck, familiar and foreign in one and it always makes him feel like crying.

On those days he remembers Cougar after everything went to shit. The haunted look in his eyes, the scars on his hands. The way he recklessly threw himself in front of danger, compromising them at times, but more often than not saving all their asses. He sees him against skylines, hunched over like he's ready to pounce. It's worse when he remembers the defeat in Cougar's eyes in the pipe room, the blood on his clothes and bullet holes in his chest - he stops talking when those memories slice through his mind like razor blades, and the guilt surges up in his chest because he knows that he should have stayed behind too.

There are days when he feels almost human again. When he sleeps and eats and walks around like a normal person. He sits with Pooch in the evenings sharing a drink and silence that they try not to hear their ghosts in. He helps Jolene clean the house, makes the girls' lunches, sets the table for dinner, and he smiles and promises that he'll leave at the end of the week. He never does, the bad days happen again before he finds the strength to pack his bag. He helps Jasmine and Ashley with their home work and piggy backs them around the yard until his smile almost feels real and they are laughing so much they can't breathe.

On those days he remembers the look on Cougar's face after the Winter Marine incident, the relief, the way he'd thrown himself at him and just clung, like he never wanted to let go again. It felt like a lie, that moment that promised so much more. He remembers the moments when he let himself dream, of what they could have been, afterwards, once it was all over. The ache in his chest feels like a bullet wound, punching the words he never said out of his lungs.

There are days when he doesn't remember Cougar's dead at all, when he goes hours without the weight of memory trying to smother him. Until Cougar's name has left his lips and only silence answers him and the memories all stab back into place like physical blows.

On those days he gets thrown back into reality with the memory of an explosion, of the empty expanse of ocean that he'd left Cougar for. The promises that he made to go back, but never kept.

Those days feel a little like living and taste a lot like guilt.


End file.
